Redemption Obtained

But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The author concludes his point, which he began in Hebrews 8:7, where he describes the new covenant in Christ, which was prophesied in Jeremiah 31, as greater than the old covenant established by Moses. He described the tabernacle and the instruments of worship, and how they were representative of something greater. We have talked about how the old covenant pointed to Christ and his work.

Today, we are going to see how Jesus entered the heavenly tabernacle, offered the ultimate sacrifice that would cover all sins for all time, and redeemed us, buying us out of slavery to sin, and giving us life and love that can be found nowhere else.

Big Idea: Jesus gave the only sacrifice that could save us from our sins.

Hebrews 9:11

But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation)...

The author continues in describing Jesus as our great high priest, not serving in the temple built by men, but in the Heavenly temple, which the Earthly one represents. We have seen the author of Hebrews describe the tabernacle and its furnishings as “copies and shadows,” as well as a symbol, or, as we saw last week, the Greek word for symbol is where we get our word “parable.”

The tabernacle and the different instruments for worship were not meant to be a permanent part of life. They were always meant to be representations of what Christ would do for his people. The priestly sacrifices were a shadow of what Christ would do on the cross.

Throughout this letter/sermon, the author has been telling his Jewish readers that Jesus is superior to all aspects of the old covenant. He is greater than angels, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Melchizedek, and all the sacrifices of the Old Testament.

This whole book screams:

Hebrews screams: “Jesus reigns supreme!”

The author also says that Jesus is the high priest of the good things that have come. What are those good things? For one, we saw last week in Hebrews 9:9 that the sacrifices of the old covenant could not cleanse or renew a person’s conscience. This is a major point of the author’s argument over the past couple of chapters.

We can go even deeper into the good things of which Christ is the high priest. Jesus told his disciples during his last supper with them that he would need to go away from them, but that after he left, he would send the helper, the Holy Spirit.

Just in Romans 8, we can see so many of the ministries of the Holy Spirit for believers in Christ:

Ministries of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8:

8:1-2 - No longer condemned but set free from slavery to sin and death.

8:6 - given a mindset of life and peace.8:10 - given spiritual life8:16-17 - testifies we are God’s children, his heirs, and co-heirs with Christ8:26-27 - helps us pray when we don’t know what to pray.

And because of this ministry of the Holy Spirit, the end of Romans 8 says we are more than conquerors and that nothing in this world can separate us from the love of Christ. I would say that those things are pretty good!

“All that was foreshadowed by type in the tabernacle was now reality because of Christ’s priestly ministry in heaven. The tabernacle was patterned after the sanctuary in heaven, but today we no longer need the pattern. We have the eternal reality!”

Warren Wiersbe

Notice that all of those good things that I listed are eternal blessings. Though the eternal blessings in Christ may bring some share of earthly blessings also, it does not mean that physical blessings in this life are guaranteed. There are too many prosperity preachers out there who are making money off of their followers because they equate the goodness of God with material blessings and wealth. That is heresy. If material wealth is supposedly a sign of God’s favor and blessing upon his followers, why are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates among the richest men in the world?

Jesus told his disciples they would deal with hardship and strife. We should expect hardship in this life, especially if we are followers of Jesus, because this place is not our home. When we have been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life by the Holy Spirit, we already have all the riches we will ever need. Declaring yourself as a follower of Jesus will get you ridiculed in this life, especially in this state, this county, and even this city.

Hebrews 9:12

…he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

So it says Christ entered the most holy Place once for all time. Last week, we saw how the ministry of the priests in the Old Testament was an everyday job. Though the high priest only entered the holy of holies once a year, he still had to do it every year.

If we look at what biblical and historical scholars call the “late date” of the Exodus, around 1250 BC, high priests would have entered the holy of holies around 210 times from the establishment of the Old Covenant until the death of Jesus in 33 AD. If you are saying, “Wait, that is a 280-year gap, not a 210-year gap.” But there was a 70-year window where sacrifices were not offered in the temple because Israel was exiled to Babylon. This shows that the Old Sacrifices could not take away our sins completely, but were temporary coverings.

However, Christ entered the throne room of God as our Heavenly priest, bringing the blood of a sacrifice to sprinkle on the Mercy Seat, God's throne. And he did this once. He did not need to bring an offering every year. His sacrifice was enough to cover sins once and for all!

The blood of goats and calves refers to the offerings on the day of atonement.

In Leviticus 16, we see the instructions for the Day of Atonement. The high priest would go through a cleansing ritual, put on his ceremonial clothes, and then sacrifice a bull for his sins and the sins of his family. Then, he would take two male goats for the sins of the people. One of these goats would be sacrificed as a sin offering for the people. The blood of the bull and the first goat would be what the high priest would sprinkle on the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant.

With the second goat, the high priest would place his hands on the goat, imparting or placing the sins of the people on this goat, and then send it out into the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people away with it. This is directly where the term “scapegoat” comes from.

But as we saw last week, the old covenant sacrifices and tabernacle were symbols, or parables, of what was to come. These offerings could only cover sin temporarily. They could not remove sin. The “scapegoat” did not actually carry the weight of the sins of the people into the desert or wilderness. It was pointing forward to Jesus.

Christ’s sacrifice could actually “take away” our sins. Jesus fulfills the roles of both goats in the Old Testament. Not only was he the one killed so that his blood could be sprinkled on the mercy seat, but he was also the one who carried our sins, taking the punishment for our sins, having been taken outside of the city to be killed, just as the goat was taken out of the camp to carry away the sins of Israel.

That is what John the Baptist said about him when Jesus came to be baptised by John.

John 1:29

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Christ has taken the punishment for our sins, removing the stain of sin from our lives so that we can be free to enter the presence of God.

This verse also says that through Christ's offering, he has gained Redemption for his people. When we think of redemption today, we think of an athlete who failed miserably in the past, who has come back to win a championship. Or we may think of redeeming coupons. But in the ancient world…

Redemption - the release of people, animals, or property from bondage through the payment of a price.

Redemption means that a debt has been paid. Someone or something has been freed from slavery

In the ancient world, if you could not pay a debt, you either gave your property, your livestock, or yourself in servitude to the person you owed until the debt was paid. There were still times of “man stealing,” as would be described of chattel slavery, that the Americas and Great Britain practiced until the 1800s. The Mosaic Law actually had a statute against “man-stealing” for slavery purposes. So even where the Old Testament talks about proper treatment of slaves, it is not talking about chattel slavery, because that was a punishable offense.

Much of the “slavery” that is being talked about in the Old and New Testaments was people needing to pay off debts. You would offer yourself, or possibly a family member, as a slave or servant to that person until you work off the amount of money or debt that you owed, or someone in your family pays off the debt that you owed.

The apostle Paul talks about this in Romans 6, where he compares offering yourself as a slave to someone to pay off a debt to the choice of being a slave to sin or a slave to God.

Romans 6:16-18

Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

Paul is telling us that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. There is no in between. No middle ground. The default setting of our hearts is sinful. We are born into slavery to sin. David says in Psalm 51:

Psalm 51:5

Indeed, I was guilty when I was born;I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

We are slaves to sin from the moment we are conceived.

Who is the debt of our sin owed to?

God.

The debt of our sin is owed to God. When we sin, we are committing “cosmic treason” against the creator of the universe. He told Adam after creating him that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die. Death is the payment for sin. The final destination for those in their sins is hell.

We often see in culture that Satan is the one running hell from his CEO office just outside the flames.

But this is not the case. Hell was made for the devil and the rest of the fallen angels. The Bible describes it as:

Descriptions of hell in the New Testament:

Matt 25:41 - “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”Matt 25:46 - “eternal punishment”Mark 9:43 - “unquenchable fire”Matt 8:12 - “outer darkness”Rev 14:10-11 - “eternal torment with no rest”

This is not a place that the devil has created to torment people. This is a place created by God for those who refuse to honor him as God. It is a place for Satan’s suffering as much as any other being who does not want to submit to God. It is a complete separation from his goodness and mercy, and instead is the place of eternal justice for those who refuse to submit to God.

When we see that Jesus obtained “eternal redemption,” it is speaking, specifically, to Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for our sins. We owed the debt of our lives for our rebellion against God. And so, Jesus stepped down from heaven, he lived a life of perfect obedience to the law, and lived without sin. He allowed himself to be arrested, sentenced to death, beaten, and finally, faced the most humiliating death of the ancient world in crucifixion.

In doing so, he substituted himself for those who believe in him. Jesus took the punishment of God’s wrath and justice against sin so that we didn’t have to. He endured the separation from God’s goodness, mercy, and grace on the cross. This is why Christ shouted out on the cross, quoting from Psalm 22:

Psalm 22:1

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Some theologians believe that Jesus was singing/speaking through this Psalm on the cross as he fulfilled its prophetic words.

Once Jesus had endured God’s wrath against sin, he cried out in a loud voice, “It is finished,” because we see in our passage here in Hebrews that Jesus gave this sacrifice once for all time. Then he gave up his spirit and died. Jesus paid the ransom price; he redeemed the people of God by paying for their sins.

Romans 3:26

God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

The death of Jesus shows God’s true justice, not the distorted version of preferential treatment that people in our world today try to pawn off as justice, but this shows the true justice of God because someone has suffered the punishment of God’s wrath for the sins of God’s people. And since Jesus was and is God, only he, only the uncreated Creator, could take the wrath of God for the sins of the entire world. In Jesus, God’s justice is satisfied.

But it doesn’t stop there. With Christ paying the price to redeem humanity from their sins, God then calls those who trust in him, who believe in Christ’s sacrifice for their salvation, he calls them justified, righteous in the sight of God.

This is what we call:

Penal Substitutionary Atonement - Christ, in our place, paid the penalty for our sins to make us right with God.

Some people hate this term. Liberal bible scholars and “progressive” Christians think that this makes God vindictive and vengeful. They believe it gives the impression that God is surprised by our sin and gets angry with us just as humans get angry with a friend who lies to us, or if a spouse cheats. They believe that God being angry at sin negates his love, justice, and mercy. It is just that God is angry at sin.

God’s wrath against sin is not greater than his love.

God’s love for humanity is not greater than his wrath against sin.

If we truly understand how holy God is, that his holiness is like the sun, and that sin is like any object that gets too close to the sun. The heat and radiation from the sun burn up that object completely. That is what God’s holiness does to sin. The truth of God’s holiness is a white-hot flame that incinerates all unholiness or ungodliness in his presence. At the same time, God loves humanity enough to send his son to face that wrath against sin so we do not have to.

Our sinfulness, which we are born with, as we saw earlier from Psalm 51, keeps us from entering into the presence of God without feeling the oppressive weight of God’s wrath against our sinfulness. If we are going to enter into God’s presence and feel his love, mercy, and grace, then sin needs to be paid for, or atoned for. And Christ was the one who did that on the cross.

The progressive or liberal view of Christ’s death on the cross does not take into account that it was the plan all along. I have said it multiple times, but the cross was not “Plan B” because humanity screwed up God’s plan, and he needed to come up with another way for humanity to be close to him.

But what does Scripture say? Revelation 13 tells us of those whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb of God, describing the Lamb as having been slain since the creation of the world. (Ephesians & 1 Peter) The bible tells us that God does not have a Plan B.

The cross was also not “cosmic child abuse” as progressives try to say. The cross was God, in Jesus Christ, as the second person of the Trinity, willing to give of himself for his people. It was not trinitarian hostility, but an agreement between the three members of the Trinity on how redemption and rescue from sin would be brought to the world.

This passage in Hebrews 9, like so many others in Scripture, points to Jesus paying the price for our sins in our place. This may be a poor example, but the old covenant is like renting a home. Those sacrifices for sin are like rent payments. They will continue forever because you can never pay enough to buy the house yourself, and the house you live in is a dump. The floors are warped, mold is growing on the walls, and the plumbing leaks. This house will kill you if you cannot get out of it.

But the new covenant in Christ came about as we were paying these never-ending rent payments for a broken-down house, and Jesus paid for the house in full, upgraded and sanitized every aspect of the house, handed you the key and the deed, and said, “I did this for you.”

Hebrews 9:13-14

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?

We have already talked about the blood of bulls and goats. The ashes of a cow refer to the red heifer sacrifice. This animal was completely burned up, and its ashes were used to purify those who are made unclean through touching a dead body. These ashes, along with the blood of bulls and goats, would be sprinkled on the person or object that needs cleansing. When Moses consecrated the people to God after they agreed to follow the law that God gave Moses on Mt Sinai, he took a hyssop branch, dipped it in the blood of an animal, and sprinkled it on all of the people of Israel. But these things could only bring outward purification. Hebrews 9:10 said

Hebrews 9:10

They are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings imposed until the time of the new order.

These rules and rituals could not bring inward purity to Israel. They could only provide an outward sense of purity. They would not clear our conscience, but allow people to enter into the temple area to bring their sacrifices.

And so, if the blood and ashes of these animals could provide purity for us in the sight of God, again, it could only provide external purity; how much more would the blood of the creator of the universe provide redemption for the whole man, including the cleansing of the conscience?

Christ’s sacrifice is so much more powerful than the sacrifices of the Old Testament that it can give us outward, ritual purity and the moral purity we need to be permanently right with God. It takes the dead heart of stone out of us and puts in a heart of flesh, one with God’s law written on it. He cleanses our conscience, making us aware of the evil that we commit against God, and causing us to turn from those things. He sends the Holy Spirit to minister to us in our need, reminding us that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and works his fruit into our hearts; the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Without this working in our hearts and minds, we only desire to do evil. We want to follow our own path. I have heard people ask many times over the last couple of weeks, “If there is a God, why is there so much evil in this world?”

If we assume there is Evil in this world, we are assuming there is Good.

If we assume there is actually evil in this world, capital “E” evil, we are assuming there is capital “G” good.

If there is an overarching moral law defining Good and Evil, there must be a Law Giver.

Why?

If there is no Law Giver, and morality is what we want it to be, we cannot judge Pharaoh, Hitler, Mao, Castro, or anyone else for the atrocities they have committed because they were doing what they thought was right.

This is the logical way that we think through the idea of good and evil in this world. But the logical way of thinking through this doesn’t help a woman and her 15-year-old son when the husband and father dies after a 6-year battle with cancer. The logical way of thinking does not comfort those who have lost loved ones to disease, drugs, or terrible accidents.

That is because there is an emotional aspect to all of this as well. The evil and hardship of this world make us angry, sad, disappointed, and depressed. But there is one place that we can find hope in the midst of all that suffering. God came down to earth in Jesus Christ and entered into human flesh, experiencing the pain, anguish, and suffering that we still face in this world.

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

The greatest act of evil in this world that was ever perpetrated against anyone was the day that humanity betrayed, arrested, flogged, whipped, and crucified the Son of God. There is no greater evil than the torture and killing of the only innocent human who has ever walked the face of the earth.

And in that, the greatest act of love in this world was Jesus’ willingness to walk that path, knowing it would lead to his death, sacrificing himself to satisfy the justice of God. Jesus told his own disciples during his final supper with them before his death:

John 15:13

No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.

Christ laid down his life, allowing the most evil act in the world to be perpetrated against him, and in so doing, showed the greatest act of love that could ever be known. Our greatest act of Love is doing the same thing in return and giving up our own lives for Christ.

John 15:14

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

If we have been cleansed from dead works, as our last verse says in our passage today, we are now free to serve God. We are no longer slaves to a sinful heart and mind. We have hope. We do what God has commanded, not out of a sense of duty and obligation, but out of love for the God who saved us, healed us, and loved us so much that he would give his son to die in our place.

In past sermons, you have heard me mention a man named Wes Huff. Last week, he was on a podcast called The Diary of a CEO with Steve Bartlett. (link in sermon notes: https://youtu.be/nrwNSSyKuD4?si=pmlPoAXc3Mr_wOUV)

I would encourage you all to pray for people like Wes Huff. In the last year and a half, Wes has been on 3 of the biggest podcasts in the WORLD, podcasts of non-Christians who are asking what Christianity is about, and he declared the truth of the Gospel with clarity, conviction, and kindness. The enemy is likely to bring all types of attacks against this man of faith, as well as others, who have been given so many opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with millions of people.

In this podcast, they get to talking about sin, and eventually they get to the topic of heaven and hell. And the host, Steven Bartlet, finally asks, “Am I going to hell?”

And Wes starts to laugh and says, “This is the clip that they are going to put online everywhere, ‘Wes Huff says Steven Bartlet is going to hell.’” But then, Wes says this:

“Everyone is going to hell, everyone… The Bible is very clear: all good people go to heaven. But Jesus said no one is good but God alone. So, if all good people go to heaven and no one is good but God alone, only God is in heaven.”

“...Heaven isn't full of good people. Heaven is full of people who understand they are not good enough… Justice (for our sins) is fulfilled in Jesus… now mercy, which is not getting what we do deserve, is able to be given to those who put their trust in Jesus.”

Huff is telling the host that our good works are not enough to get us to heaven. We get to heaven by works, but not by our own works. It is only the work of Christ that can bring us to heaven.

Bartlet: “So if I don’t believe in Jesus and the Bible, but I live a 'good life'…and I don’t believe in God, am I going to hell?”

If you are living your life rejecting God, he is not going to force you into his presence… if heaven is a place for those who have submitted their lives to Jesus, who are living the identity of what they are created to be, and said, “Your will be done God,”...

…hell is a place where God says, “You rejected me, your will be done. I am going to give you what you want, in that I am going to remove my grace and mercy from you, and you are going to experience, truly, what you desire in being separated from me and my goodness and my grace.”

Wes Huff, On the DOAC Podcast

Do you understand that you are not good enough to get to heaven? Do you realize that there is no amount of tasks, jobs, or good deeds that you can do to make yourself right with God? Can you see that Christ has done the work that you could not, and that you need his work to redeem you from slavery to sin?

If that is you, today is the day to turn to Christ. Look to Christ for salvation. Submit your life to him. If you have come to the realization that you need Jesus:

Next Step: I will repent and submit my life to Christ.

Don’t reject the love that God has offered to you. Following your own will, following your own “truth,” cannot give you the love, peace, joy, and purpose in life that can only be found in Christ.

If you are making the declaration that you are submitting to Christ, that he has changed your heart, I would love to speak with you and pray with you after service…

You may also be here and don’t fully understand this idea of substitution. You may not know how to work through some of your thoughts on good, evil, sin, heaven, or hell. I would love to talk with you as well. If you need help understanding these things, let's figure out a time to meet for coffee or meet here at the church to talk. I will do my best to point out the truth of what Scripture says, and give you resources to help you understand what these things mean.

Let us pray.

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